for a few days, and were going back to the farms where they lived. They were stopped once, their papers were checked, the German soldiers laughed and winked at them for a minute, tried to tease them with chocolate bars and cigarettes, and sent them on their way. They were harmless for once, and loved flirting with the French women. They had spoken to the three women in broken French.
It was after dark when they got to the farmhouse, and went in. The farmer and his wife seemed surprised to see Amadea. The other two women introduced them, and the farmer's wife showed her to a small room behind the kitchen. She was to help them on the farm and help with the chores. The farmer's wife had terrible arthritis and could no longer help her husband. Amadea was to do all they directed her to do, and at night she was to work for the local cell. One of the men would come to see her the next day. The farmer and his wife had been in the Resistance since the occupation of France. They looked like harmless old people, but were not. They were extraordinarily courageous, and knew all of the operatives in the area. The clothes the farmer's wife gave her made Amadea look like a farm girl. She looked like a strong girl, and although she was still very thin, she was healthy and young, and she looked the part of a farm girl in a worn faded dress and an apron.
She spent the night in yet another unfamiliar bed, but was grateful to have one. The two women from the cell in Paris went back in the morning, and wished Amadea well. As she did with everyone now, she wondered if she would ever see them again. Everything about life seemed to be transient and unpredictable. People disappeared out of each other's lives in an instant. And each time you said good-bye, it could be forever, and often was. They were doing dangerous work, and Amadea was anxious to help them. She felt as though she owed them a lot, and wanted to repay the debt.
She helped with the chores on the farm that morning, and milked the few cows they still had. She carried wood, worked in the garden, helped cook lunch, and did the washing. She worked as tirelessly and as seriously as she had in the convent, and the old woman was grateful. She hadn't had that much help in years. And after dinner that night, their nephew came to visit. His name was Jean-Yves. He was a tall gangly man with dark hair and dark eyes, and there was something faintly sorrowful about him. He was two years older than Amadea and looked like he had the world on his shoulders. His uncle poured him a glass of the wine he made himself, and offered a glass to Amadea, which she declined. She had a glass of milk instead, from the cow she had milked that morning. It was cold and fresh, and she sat quietly at the kitchen table as the two men talked. Afterward Jean-Yves asked her if she'd like to go for a walk, and she understood that it was expected. He was the cell member she was meant to work with. They strolled outside in the warm air, like two young people getting to know each other, and he looked at her somewhat suspiciously.
“I hear you had a long trip.” She nodded. It was still hard to believe she was here. She had left Prague only days ago. And her refuge in the forest only shortly before that. Her head was still spinning from it all, and the stress of crossing borders with a partisan dressed as an SS officer, and carrying false papers. She was Amelie Dumas now. Jean-Yves was a Breton, and had been a fisherman, before he came to Melun, but he actually was related to her hosts. It was all confusing for her at this point. It was a lot of information to take in and absorb. False identities, real jobs, secret agents of the Resistance, and all of them trying to free France.
“I'm lucky to be here,” she said simply, grateful to them all for what they were doing for her. She was hoping to help them in exchange. It was better than hiding in a tunnel somewhere, praying that the Nazis didn't find her. She liked this better, and it made more sense to her.
“We need you here. We're getting a drop tomorrow.”
“From England?” she asked softly, but there was no one to hear them in the gentle night air. He nodded in response. “Where do they come in?”
“In the fields. They radio us first. We go out to meet them. We use torches. They can only stay on the ground for about four minutes when they land. Or sometimes they just parachute things in. It depends what they bring.” It was dangerous work, but they were anxious to do it. He was one of the leaders of his cell. There was a man above him, but Jean-Yves was one of their best men, and the most fearless. He had been a daredevil in his youth. She couldn't help wondering why he looked so sad. As they walked through the orchards, he looked mournful. “Do you know how to use a shortwave radio?” he inquired, and she shook her head. “I'll teach you. It's fairly simple. Can you use a gun?” She shook her head again, and then he laughed. “What were you before this? A fashion model or an actress, or just a spoiled girl?” She was so good looking, he assumed it had been something like that, and this time she laughed at him.
“A Carmelite nun. But if that was supposed to be a compliment, thank you very much.” She wasn't sure being called an actress was a compliment, her mother certainly wouldn't have thought so. He looked startled by her response.
“Did you leave the convent before the war?”
“No. Only after my mother and sister were deported. For the safety of the others. It was the right thing to do.” She didn't know it yet, but Sister Teresa Benedicta a Cruce, Edith Stein, and her sister Rosa had been deported to Auschwitz from the convent in Holland only days before. By the time she was walking in the orchards in Melun with Jean-Yves, Edith Stein had been gassed and was dead.
“And you'll go back to the convent after the war?”
“Yes,” Amadea said with the ring of certainty in her voice. It was what kept her going.
“What a waste,” he said, looking at her.
“Not in the least. It's a wonderful life.”
“How can you say that?” he said argumentatively. “All locked away like that. Besides, you don't look like a nun.”
“Yes, I do,” she said calmly. “And it's a very busy life. We work very hard all day, and pray for all of you.”
“Do you pray now?”
“Of course I do. There's a lot to pray for these days.” Including and most especially the man whose death she had caused on her escape from Theresienstadt. She still remembered Wilhelm's face with blood everywhere from his cracked head. She knew she would feel responsible for it all her life, and had a lifetime of penance to do.
“Will you pray for my brothers?” he asked suddenly, and stopped to look at her. He looked younger than she felt, although he was older than she. She felt very old these days. They had all seen too much by now, some more than others.
“Yes, I will. Where are they?” she asked, touched that he would ask her to pray for them. She would pray for them that night.
“They were killed two weeks ago by the Nazis, in Lyon. They were with Moulin.” She had learned who he was from Serge. He was the hero of the Resistance.
“I'm sorry. Do you have other brothers and sisters?” she asked gently, hoping that he did, but he only shook his head.
“My parents are dead. My father died in a fishing accident when I was a boy. My mother died last year. She had pneumonia, and we couldn't get medicine for her.” His brothers' recent deaths explained his mournful look. His entire family was gone, except for his aunt and uncle in Melun. Hers was too.
“My family is gone too. Or they may be. My mother and sister were deported a year ago June.” There had been no news of them since that she knew of. “My father died when I was ten. My mother's family was all deported after Kristallnacht. They were Jewish. And my father's family disowned him when they married, because my mother was German and Jewish. He was a French Catholic. They were in the first war then. People do such stupid things. Neither of their families ever forgave them.”
“Were they happy?” He seemed interested, and Amadea was touched. They were two young people making friends. In hard times. Very hard times.
“Very. They loved each other very much.”
“Do you think they regretted what they did, defying their families, I mean?”
“No, I don't. But it was hard on my mother when he died. She was never the same again. My sister was only two. I always took care of her,” Amadea said, as tears sprang to her eyes. She hadn't talked about Daphne in a long time, and suddenly it made Amadea miss her more, and her mother too. “I think there are a lot of people like us now, who have no families left.”
“My brothers were twins,” he said as though it mattered now. It mattered to him.
“I'll pray for them tonight. And for you.”
“Thank you,” he said politely as they walked slowly back to the farm. He liked her. She seemed very mature, but she had been through a lot too. It was still hard for him to believe she was a nun, or to understand why she
